Sharing my own vegan recipes, and recommending vegan recipes by others that are exceptional, so that age old question, "What's for Dinner?" does not cause you to bite all your nails off and pull out all your now gray hairs. Going vegan shouldn't be scary. I'll hold your hand as you walk through the valley of the shadow of meat, you will fear no evil, for I am with you; my spatula and my nootch, they comfort you.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

The Million Minute Pot Pie

Okay so it doesn't really take a million minutes. It totally felt like it, but maybe that's because I'd never made this before and it was my first time ever making a pie crust. Here is what my pot pie was based upon: (clicky) BUT, and it's a big Butt, I have some major changes and things to remember.

1. Regardless of how mad you get, keep going. Using this much earth balance butter means it is capable of mending a lot of mistakes. And it will be worth it. Don't Give Up! And yes, you can throw utensils around. And curse.

2. Skip the tofu, substitute 1 box Boca Chick'n patties diced, or anything that doesn't require much more than pushing start on the microwave. Had I used tofu, it would have been like, the 2 million Minute pie.
3. If you are serving 5 or so people, the changes I make will be adequate, i.e. there will be leftovers.4. I will attempt to recreate my awful experience with this recipe, so that you may follow in my footsteps with some idea of what this might be like if you're as inexperienced with pastry as I am.

The original recipe only serves 2 it says, so I altered it to serve about 6 hungry people who are only getting this for dinner.

Special Equipment
a ten inch cast iron skillet, or any oven safe casserole dish. I had enough filling for the cast iron skillet and a small casserole dish, maybe 6 inch by 4 inch oval dish.

For the Crust (Part 1)

The secret to this crust is chilling the ingredients and tools. Place the flour in a mixing bowl and chill in the freezer while you are preparing the filling. Also place a pastry blender or fork in the freezer.

***So step one for Beth is to remember that she forgot to freeze the butter last night. Place butter in freezer along with the other stuff.

For the Filling

Preheat oven to 400° F.

Heat 2 tablespoons (or less) of olive oil in the same skillet. Add onion, celery, carrot, and garlic and sauté until onion is translucent.

Add potato to the skillet and cook, stirring frequently, until tender but not mushy. ***Hindsight Beth says: "Check yer taters! They might not be done all the way through after 5-10 minutes and you wont know until you eat the pie a million minutes later.***

Add flour, nutritional yeast, and soy sauce to the skillet and stir into the vegetables.

Add vegetable broth and stir until combined, scraping all the browned bits from the bottom of the pan.***I just realized this moment that I didn't increase the amount of broth to reflect the other increases I made... no matter, it all works in the end.***

Add boca chicken, peas, sage, and thyme and stir until combined.

Remove from heat and season to taste with salt and pepper. ***everything was fine until I absent mindedly salted the dish, forgetting I'd just added 6 tablespoons of soy sauce AND 1.25 cups veggie broth. WAY too salty when I tasted it, in horror at my zone out salting . And here's where soy milk comes in to save the day. Add milk little by little, until it's at a pot pie like consistency. A thick stew. This is why it didn't matter that I hadn't increased the broth amount. Praise GOD, because HAD I added 3+ cups of broth, it woulda been ruined.

For the Crust (Part 2) *** tell anyone around to get ear plugs in, and helmets on at this time***

Take the supplies out of the freezer.

Cut the Earth Balance into smaller cubes or slices and add to the flour. Using a pastry blender (which you don't own and isn't at your supermarket) or fork, cut the mixture until it resembles coarse meal. Realize that using a salad fork will take a billion minutes, try the potato masher next. Realize that the potato masher isn't getting it to a 'coarse meal' NOR is it taking less time per se, and reach for your wire whisk. This does better and you SLOWLY get close enough (but not very close) to the 'course meal' you are after... If you haven't thrown at least two utensils loudly into the sink by now, congratulations. No cursing yet gets you bonus points. Then, using your hands, quickly rub the mixture together so that the Earth Balance is absorbed into the flour. I have no idea what that is supposed to look like, so I tried rubbing the larger butter lumps mostly into the flour and tried even more to get to a 'coarse meal'

Gradually drizzle ice water into the bowl, mixing with the pastry blender or fork until the dough just comes together. Just use your hands. I honestly think it was a cruel joke, whoever told me a fork would do here.

Quickly shape the dough into a ball, divide into two pieces, and flatten into disks. Place one disk on a floured surface a roll out to 1/8 inch thick, and so that it looks large enough to cover the sides and bottom of your baking dish. Spray baking dish/skillet with something oily. Transfer dough into baking dish/skillet and press it in, trimming excess and patching short comings. Scoop the pie filling right in there. Roll out other disk, to be the top crust. Place the top piece on top, and kinda seal the edges up where the bottom meets the top dough. Make an X with a knife in the center of the top crust.

Bake in the oven until golden and bubbly, about 30 minutes. Curl up in a chair with your 'Life and Style' because there's no way in HELL this thing will be done in 30 minutes. After 45 minutes of baking, the crust was done but not golden yet. It could have baked another 15 easily, but kids were starving in the living room.

Let sit for about 5 minutes before serving. Did I not just say kids were starving in the living room? PLUS they need to get ready for bed really soon? Cut pieces for the kids and smoosh their insides out a bit, put in freezer for a few minutes until not scorching. You don't have time for the ER tonight.

So after all my cursing and throwing of things, don't worry no spitting, this came out delicious. The milk mellowed out the super saltiness, so it was just a tiny TINY bit too salty. And the potatoes were just JUST underdone by a smidge. But man, when you eat 1/4 of this pot pie and realize just how much vegan butter is on your plate, it almost scares you but it's too tasty for you to care. And this recipe is why you should ALWAYS have NON-HYDROGENATED vegan butters.